


Sorrow

by DeeNomilk



Series: Tashok the Dragonborn [18]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Angst, just a bit, that quest is so damn sad, waking nightmare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 12:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20227498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeeNomilk/pseuds/DeeNomilk
Summary: Tashok, still disturbed by the uneasiness that brought on such a nightmare, can't help but go back to Dawnstar to settle things. She eagerly joins Erandur, and together they make short work of the cultists and bandits alike.They should be joyful. They "won", after all.But feelings don't really follow the rules.





	Sorrow

Tashok wrings her hands into her armoured robe nervously as she watches the former cultist turned priest attempt to destroy the Skull of Corruption. The source of all the nightmares in Dawnstar, and what drew her to return to the town.

It can’t be this easy...

—

“I can’t shake off the feeling something awful was out there…” she’d said to Illia while the two drank tea outside, watching her children playing near the lake.

She’d only been back for a week, yet she couldn’t shake the awful feeling that she left the people of Dawnstar to a terrible fate.

“Sounds like magic to me.” Illia had supplied. “And not the good kind. The kind that Mother dabbled in.”

“What if it keeps getting worse?”

“So what if it does?”

“I can’t just leave an entire town to it! Despite their complete lack of care for Alesan, it, it just isn’t right…”

Illia had given her a knowing look then.

“You’re going back, aren’t you.”

—

She and Erandur had been fighting for the past hour, maybe more, considering the strange time warping she’d gone through. After all the fighting, it seemed strangely anticlimactic for it all to be over like this. With a staff that can’t fight back being ritualistically destroyed while she looked on.

"He's deceiving you.” a sickly sweet voice echoes through her mind.

She reels at the sound and brings a hand to her head as she gasps, eyes darting around as she tries to locate the source of the voice. This is no thought of hers. Her doubts are usually much more subtle, and with her own voice, for a start.

Erandur is so deep in concentration he hasn’t noticed her reaction whatsoever. Nor did he notice the voice, it seems.

“When the ritual's complete, the Skull will be free and then Erandur will turn on you.” the voice continues. “Quickly! Kill him now.”

_But he’s so kind…_

The Severins seemed kind too.

_That’s different!_

How so?

Then again, he was fighting with some intensity she hadn't expected considering his demeanour just moments ago.

Now, that’s what her inner thoughts sound like.

“Kill him and claim the Skull for your own!” the not her-own-thoughts-voice urges her.

Now Tashok_ knows_ this is something else entirely.

“Vaermina commands you!”

Ah. That explains it.

“No.” Tashok says, seemingly to no one.

Never tell me what to do _again_.

The voice doesn’t speak again, and soon the Skull crumples to dust. Erandur lowers his arms and hunches over, letting out a long breath.

He looks exhausted, and dejected.

"Forgive me if I don't appear relieved…” he says. “This temple has taken its toll on me.”

“So, it’s over?” Tashok dares to ask.

"Yes. The Skull has been destroyed and Dawnstar is safe.”

“Thank you for helping me.”

He blinks at her, surprised. Before giving her a forced, tired smile.

"There's no need to thank me.” he assures her. “What you did was for the people of Dawnstar. If anyone should be thanked, it should be you.”

She nods. This particular quest has been quite taxing.

“As a humble servant of Mara, I have little in the way of gold or coin…” he continues. “But perhaps I can offer you something else... companionship.”

“Oh, I didn’t do it for money.” Tashok tells him.

She follows him down the altar’s steps, and watches him stop as he reaches the bodies of the two dead cultists. His friends.

"I've constructed a meagre shrine to Mara in the antechamber where we entered. You must’ve seen it.” he continues, voice flat. “My intention was to spend the rest of my years here, burying the past and praying for forgiveness… But instead, I wish to offer my services to you. If you ever wish to journey with me, I'll be here.”

He ends with a note of finality, as if he doesn’t expect her to take him up on his offer, nor for them to ever see each other again. He kneels down before his former brothers and reaches for them, before stopping himself, his hand ghosting over the robes.

He stays like this for some time, unmoving.

“Is.. uh…” Tashok starts to speak, startling him.

He must’ve forgotten she was still here.

“Is there, some sort of funeral rites for followers of Vaermina?” she asks.

“No.” he doesn’t look at her and pulls his hand back onto his lap.

“What should we do with the bodies? I know Orcs typically get buried with their weapons…”

Tashok waits for a reply, or a reaction, but it doesn’t come.

“I mean, we shouldn’t just leave them all here… It doesn’t seem right.”

She hears him swallow deeply, then he nods. It’s slow, almost unnoticeable.

“You’re right.” he whispers. “They deserve better. They all do.”

And with that, the two of them begin gathering the bodies. Tashok steps outside to ask Lucien and Inigo for assistance, and within a few hours, the cultists are being turned to ash on a massive pyre while the Orcs are buried in a mass grave.

“The priest doesn’t seem well.” Inigo comments from a distance.

“I’m worried.” Tashok admits. “I don’t want to leave him here all alone.”

She steps to him quietly until they’re side by side.

“You could come with me, if you want to.” she offers. “Have you ever been in the Falkreath region?”

“Can’t say I have.” Erandur doesn’t meet her eyes.

“It’s quite nice, especially right now. The trees are turning and it’s just a bunch of pretty colours. I think you’d like it.”

A small smile graces Erandur’s lips for a split second.

“Yes, that sounds lovely… Lead the way.”

—

As per her tradition, she made a bit of a pitstop. At the top of a mountain.

Where a mean and terrifying undead creature rose up from a coffin.

Thanks to her group, along with her many healing potions and spells, they finally managed to take down the strange creature.

“Hold still.” she hears Erandur say as he kneels next to Lucien.

He has a nasty looking burn on his sword wielding arm, which is quickly healed by Erandur. Tashok glances at Inigo, who seems relatively unharmed.

With the confidence that her friends are safe and sound, she begins stalking towards the corpse they defeated, but stops short when she begins hearing a somewhat familiar chanting coming from a wall.

She steps over the body and towards the wall, entranced.

The corners of her vision grow dark and things begin to blur. If it wasn’t for the lack of pain or weakness, she would think she was about to faint. But she won’t. She never did when such things happen.

She begins trying to scan the many words written in the strange language, unable to make it out, but knowing she should. Like when she’s trying to remember a specific word, but can’t seem to recall it at that moment, though she knows she knows the word. Like it’s on the tip of her tongue, the word just out of reach.

Her eyes fall on three specific words, clear where all the others are shrouded.

**Far.**

**Fool.**

And…

**Voice**

“Tash?” she hears Lucien’s distant, concerned tone.

She blinks back to reality and turns around, her three companions close by, all looking mild puzzled and worried.

“Yes?” the word is caught her her mouth, like she’s eating a mouthful of mashed potatoes as she tries to speak.

“Is there something wrong my friend?” Inigo cocks his head to the side.

“Oh, nothing to worry about!” she lets out a shaky chuckle. “Just the walls doing their weird chanting thing again…”

She points her thumb back towards the wall to emphasize her point.

At this point all three of her companions’ faces drop, their eyes widening and looking at each other in concern.

“Chanting?” Erandur asks, both to her and her friends.

As if to ask, _Is this normal?_

“Yeah, nothing new here…” Tashok shrugs with a forced smile and strides past them.

At least she tries to, but a hand on her wrist stops her.

“Tash…” Lucien starts, pulling her back to them. “Do… Do you, hear chanting? From there…?”

“Well not anymore…” Tashok waves her hand noncommittally. “It stops once I figure out the words.”

Her friends frown. Lucien lets go of her and looks at the wall.

“You… can read this?” he asks with an equal measure of puzzlement and awe.

“No! Well, not most of it. Just some words here and there…” Tashok begins to feel odd. “I mean, it’s nothing really. It was weird the first few times, but I’m used to it now… Isn’t that how it is for you?”

The last question is asked with a tinge of fear.

“No my friend.” Inigo puts a hand on her shoulder.

“Hearing voices isn’t usually a good sign…” Erandur tells her.

“It’s not? I mean… It’s been like this since I got to Skyrim.” Tashok tries to shrug it off.

Why?!

Why did she have to be different…

Can’t she just have a normal life.

She’s sick of standing out.

It never ends well.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lucien finally turns back to her.

“I just… Thought it was like this for everyone…” she admits.

Despite the softness in her companion’s faces, with no hint of judgement, she finds herself squirming under the unwanted attention.

“It doesn’t matter…” she dismisses the conversation and approaches the body of the creature they killed.

It was hard enough to kill, and Tashok remembers a powerful staff hurtling fireballs at them.

“Tashok…” Inigo starts.

“I don’t want to talk about it!” she yells out, eyes clenched shut.

She keeps them closed, her body rigid as seconds of silence pass.

“Very well.” she hears Inigo sigh.

She allows herself to breathe again and kneels down to loot the corpse. Her hands fall on the creature’s mask, and all of a sudden she’s hit with a variety of emotions.

She hisses, as if burnt, and yet she can't seem to be able to let go of it. Her hands shake in panic, a whirlwind of emotions not her own hitting her like a mace to the head.

At least, they weren’t originally.

She feels intense loss… Loss for a family she never knew, for the life she could’ve had in High Rock had she not been so damned _impulsive_… Loss for her would-be siblings, gone forever, never to see her again. Then disappointment, the kind she used to see in her old teacher’s eyes, that she saw in the dock workers when she told them about her mistake, the kind she expects Mirabelle and Faralda to have once they realize she’s nothing but a sham and should’ve never been accepted into the College, the kind the Orcs in the stronghold must have when they see her being so detached from her own culture and not even trying to join it again.

_Ungrateful._

_Pathetic._

_Abnormal._

Then all of a sudden it stops, knocking the air out of her as she comes back to reality. She feels only the cold of the iron mask and the wind making contact with the wetness on her cheeks.

She gasps as she raises a hand to her face.

When did she start crying?

She also feels hands on her arms, on her back.

Her friends’. She slowly becomes aware that her two friends are kneeling by her side, holding her and asking what’s wrong.

She raises her eyes to meet with Erandur, who looks at her with a heartbroken look. He raises his hand to her face and holds up her chin gently.

“What’s wrong, my daughter?” he asks.

“I…” she lets out a shaky breath. “I don’t know…”

She wipes her tears with her sleeve.

“I… We should go…” she says.

She doesn’t make any move to stand up, however, and neither do her companions. They simply wait for her to be ready.

She is, eventually, and they trail alongside her as they make their way down the mountain and towards the region of Falkreath.

None of them mention anything on their way back, and soon, their conversations are as banal as they are easy.

Still, she trails her fingers down the mask as they approach her home, looking into the dark slits. All of a sudden, the word comes to her.

“Sorrow.” she says, the realization dripping from her voice.

“What was that?” Lucien turns to her.

“That’s what I felt.” she says as if it were the most obvious thing on all Nirn. “The mask… It’s… Well it’s something strange.”

“Think it’s enchanted?” Lucien peers at it.

Tashok chuckles and gives him a smug look.

“Let’s find out…” she says as she slips it on.

"My friend, is that a good idea?" Inigo's words of caution don't reach her in time.

Now that she’s identified the emotion the mask elicited in her, it’s incredibly easy to banish away.

“Oh yes.” her voice echoes from behind the mask.

She feels a surge of knowledge… of skills. Not her own, it's as if they were someone else’s and she was borrowing their years of training.

She smiles when she realizes what the undead creature was adept in… He could pick locks, shoot arrows, and make potions.

Much like herself. She wonders if he could also turn invisible. He certainly didn't attempt it during their battle.

“Mama!” she hears Sofie’s voice ring out in the distance, followed by: “_What_ are you wearing?”

Tashok laughs and takes off the mask. Any and all sadness she's had in the past few days is immediately dispelled by the sight of her sweet little Sofie jogging excitedly towards her.

“Just something I found.” she smiles as she stuff the mask away.

That’s when she sees a quick movement of white fur headed towards them. An arctic fox comes to sit by Sofie’s feet, looking up to her with calm eyes.

“Look at what I found! Can I keep her?” Sofie pleads. “Pretty please?”

“Er…” she glances about and notes that Pearl seems entirely unfazed by the fox. “Alright then… But she’s _your_ responsibility.” Tashok doesn’t think the fox would stay away, even if she were to disagree.

“Thanks! You’re the best!”

At this moment in time, Tashok feels nothing but fondness.

**Author's Note:**

> So... Krosis! I kind of always wondered what was up with the name of the Dragon Priest/Mask. So I figured the name must come from somewhere.
> 
> Couldn't end it on a sad note though, so Sofie to the rescue!


End file.
